Advances in communication infrastructures and protocols have turned computing devices into valuable communications tools. Digital networks are increasingly used for all manner of communications, including voice and video. Mobile communications devices, such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and the like, have been increasingly designed to interface with these digital networks. Mobile devices can communicate over wireless links, making them uniquely suited to providing convenient and continuous access to users. Many data processing capabilities that were previously only available on desktop computers have migrated to mobile devices due to the increasing processing power available in such devices.
Today, such wireless devices are being used for a variety of different types of communication. For example, current technologies have created wireless devices that are powerful communication tools, capable of communicating voice, data, images, video, and other multimedia content. Mobile phones, at one time solely a voice communication tool, now often include network communication capabilities such as e-mail, World Wide Web browsing, etc.
With the integration of wireless and landline network infrastructures, a multitude of new services are arising, and various information types can be conveniently communicated between wireless and/or landline terminals. As a result, devices that access these services are dealing with a wide variety of content and services. As these services migrate to mobile devices, it will be beneficial to initiate ad hoc sessions with mobile devices that take advantage of advanced content and services.
Due to the wide variety of mobile devices, however, it may not be evident what services a mobile device can handle when it connects to a network. Mobile devices can access many different types of networks and connect at any given location. Capabilities of the particular device in use may not be apparent without some action on the part of the user, therefore it is difficult to know whether the device supports advanced services after it connects to a network.
Numerous benefits may be realized from providing advanced content and services on mobile devices, since these devices can provide immediate and continuous access to users. As mobile device become more sophisticated and ubiquitous, a way of automatically providing advanced services to these devices will become more important.